Scout and DIN 58124.

We from Scout were the first to develop and produce schoolbags according to the German Safety Standard DIN 58124. This happened at a time when children mostly walked to school, parents only rarely drove their kids to school. And every Scout had neon orange warning areas.

Information on warning effects from a Scout leaflet from 2002.

Warning colours less popular.

Meanwhile, more and more parents drive their children directly to school – and schoolbags with warning colours have become less popular. We carry on believing that warning colours are important – and keep developing the safety equipment of schoolbags with the objective to make it more attractive.

We introduced additionally neon-yellow warning colours, later still yellow-green and pink-coloured ones. Still, the share of schoolbags with fluorescent warning colours has decreased continuously from year to year.

Test result "good" for Alpha and Genius with orange-red warning colours.

The German Consumer Association "Stiftung Warentest" has recently tested different Scout schoolbags (edition 2/2019). Three Scout Alpha: "Commander", "Summer Green" and "Savage" and three Scout Genius: "World Cup", "Flowery" and "Country Fields". The Alphas and Genius' are all identically constructed, they only differ by their warning colours. Alpha "Commander" and Genius "World Cup" are equipped with orange-red warning areas and were awarded with the test result "good".

Identical schoolbag, warning areas pink or not existing: poor

Alpha "Summer Green" and Genius "Flowery" are equipped with pink-coloured warning areas. The warning colour pink has been certified by the German Safety Standard DIN since October 2018 which has not been acknowledged by "Stiftung Warentest". Alpha "Savage" and Genius "Country Fields" do not dispose of warning areas. These 4 schoolbags received the test result "poor" – but only because they are not equipped with orange-red or yellow warning areas.

Apart from that these schoolbags correspond completely with Scout's usual quality standards concerning material, workmanship, wearing comfort, robustness, water resistance and many others.

Identical models, but "poor" for "Stiftung Warentest" – because of pink warning colours.

Excerpt from the results* of the schoolbag test of the German consumer association "Stiftung Warentest" (2/2019)

Material properties: very good (1.4)
Life period +
Watertightness ++
Cleanability +

* Cateogries "Daily use" and "material properties"

Conclusion

A "poor" test result of the German consumer association "Stiftung Warentest" (edition 2/2019) does not reveal anything about the quality of a Scout but only about the fact if it is equipped with warning colours that correspond to Stiftung Warentest's criteria.